Electronically signaling a nurse to a patient's room is well known within the art and is generally an accepted practice in most all-nursing facilities. Such systems consist of a nurse call button located on the patient's bed connected to a wall jack which when activated by the patient sends a signal to the nurse's station indicating the room making the call. The nurse then responds by questioning the room regarding the assistance required. Remote wireless call buttons have been retrofitted to such systems to allow for the patient to summon assistance even when they are not in the bed. Such wireless remote call buttons seem to work fairly well for private rooms or in a home health care environment where there is no question as to which patient is calling.
Retrofitted call buttons have a number of inherent drawbacks. Such devices as that disclosed by Rojas Jr. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,445,299 indicated the necessity for several elements that are not necessary and require extensive installation and programming thus increasing expense. Programming is accomplished by extensive communication between the remote call button transceiver and the wall-mounted transceiver, requiring considerable setup time.
Further, Rojas teaches the necessity for utilizing a 110 volt wall outlet for its power supply thus tying up an outlet that may be necessary for other equipment and further making the call system subject to failure during a power outage. This system also relies on Radio Frequencies, which are subject to various forms of interferences, and in most cases requires a Federal Communication License. It also utilizes a display unit in combination with its two transceivers, must be mounted to the wall adjacent the call station jack and hard wired to a coupling interface jack. The call station phono jack must be converted to receive the coupling interface jack and the existing hardwired call button. In most cases, the existing bed mounted call button is simply plugged into the outlet. If both the remote and the existing call button are required, such as with the Rojas system, a dual plug receptacle is required.
The Rojas system discloses a method for distinguishing between two or more patients in the same room wearing identical remote wireless call buttons. However, the Rojas system does not disclose what happens if one of the patients is in another room or in the hall. The nurse can be summoned to the room but still not know which patient needs assistance. Therefore, there is a need for a less expensive apparatus that requires no technical installation that can differentiate between patients within the same room and provide other features beneficial to the well being of the patient.